![]() ![]() At one point, Justin Bieber is described as a “pretty n–a.” Moore and his pals, one of whom is a lesbian tomboy, are undeniably Odd Future-esque: They skateboard, wear skinny jeans and play in a rock band named “Awreeoh” (pronounced “Oreo” Williams wrote the songs they perform in the film). Drugs are sold through Snapchat, bitcoins and the “Dark Web” dealers philosophically discuss the ethics of drone warfare a macho OG laments his social media accounts. One way Dope does that is by filtering those old inner-city tropes through an extremely of-the-moment, 2015 lens. “I wanted to use that to put a mirror to our own expectations.” “I wanted to use the common language and history that we have of those movies, but subvert them,” he says. Indeed, Dope‘s recipe of violence, retro music and fashion, and a sun-baked inner-city Los Angeles landscape makes associations with “hood classics” like Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society inevitable - and intentional: Famuyiwa explains that he used such cinematic references as points of departure. It’s a hood classic - we haven’t had one of those in decades.” I can connect to him in so many different ways, being a guy who once had that kind of lifestyle. “He’s one of those guys that’s just a product of his own environment. “It’s very cliched: I play a drug dealer, a thug with an elegant, intelligent side,” says the rapper, 26. Rocky - who landed a supporting role in Dope after helping his then-girlfriend, model Chanel Iman, practice her lines - does pull guns, however. Juice kind of makes you like Tupac more as the thug, but I don’t want people to leave Dope liking me for pulling a gun.”Ī$AP Rocky’s ‘Dope’ Film Sparks Bidding War at Sundance “The characters aren’t going out and shooting people and trying to act hard - they just want to go to school. The Atlanta native is seated at a booth in a Mexican restaurant in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood in which he has lived for just a week (he’s currently shooting Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming hip-hop-inspired Netflix series The Get Down in the Bronx). ![]() ![]() “The movie gives a different perspective on the black community,” says Moore. Even though those threats are sometimes portrayed cartoonishly, Dope is a comedy with an undercurrent of sociopolitical awareness that rarely exists in popular teen romps. But when filtered through Los Angeles’ Inglewood neighborhood, perils go beyond getting “swirlied” in the locker room by meathead jocks - Bloods are on one corner, dealers lurk on the next, and college is regarded as an uncommon escape route, not an inevitability. In many ways, the charming coming-of-age comedy traffics in tropes found in mainstream films like American Pie and Superbad: a virginal high school outcast looks for love, bullies rumble toward a richly deserved comeuppance, madcap schemes face unforeseen complications. Kap G Talks ‘Dope’ & ‘Bringing Two Worlds Together’ as a Mexican-American RapperĪfter debuting in January at the Sundance Film Festival to huge acclaim, Dope set off a bidding war between distributors that ended with a guaranteed $7 million deal from Open Road Films and Sony Pictures. “A lot of artists were being signed to major labels and creating interesting and cutting-edge art, but it hadn’t gotten so successful that people knew what the formula was.” “I’m biased in that I think that’s when hip-hop was firing on all cylinders, both commercially and artistically,” the 41-year-old says, citing the diversity of acts like Geto Boys, Outkast, The Notorious B.I.G. ![]() The score and soundtrack, assembled by Williams and available June 16 on Columbia, is heavy on classic records like Nas‘ 1994 “The World Is Yours” and A Tribe Called Quest‘s 1991 “Scenario.”įor writer-director Rick Famuyiwa, whose previous offerings include The Wood (1999) and Brown Sugar (2002), the film’s infatuation with early-’90s rap was personal. A legion of young rappers, including Vince Staples, Tyga, Kap G and Casey Veggies, make cameos. Along with Moore, a singer-rapper who put out the mixtape I Am Da Beat in 2012 and danced in several Soulja Boy videos, Dope features starring roles from A$AP Rocky and Zoe Kravitz (of the rock band Lolawolf). The film was executive-produced by Pharrell Williams and Sean “ Diddy” Combs, and music is inescapable in it. Dope tells the story of Malcolm (played by Moore), a retro-rap-obsessed straight-A student/musician from a rough neighborhood in present-day Los Angeles who gets pulled into a criminal life when he’s inadvertently saddled with several kilos of a drug dealer’s molly. Such is the generational schism in a film that is both a contemporary teen comedy and a love paean to ’90s hip-hop. The ‘Dope’ Soundtrack Is Awesome, Starting With This Hilarious Pharrell-Produced Song ![]()
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